Blood Moon

by A. D. Ryan

  What have I done?

  “Brooke?” Nick’s voice was quiet and nervous as it called out to me. He sounded far away, but I sensed his presence right next to me. It was disorienting. “Are you all right?”

  “I killed her,” I whispered in disbelief, staring down at my trembling hands, unable to come to grips with my actions. “I-I just…killed someone.”

  Nick pulled me into his arms, but my body was stiff and resistant as it collided with his. I was appalled in myself over having actually done something so horrifying and so…so wrong.

  “Brooke, she wasn’t human,” Nick soothed, his hand moving over my head and down my back. He was trying to justify my actions, but I failed to take comfort in his words.

  Pushing myself free of his arms, I looked at him. “I know…but—”

  Nick was having none of it, grabbing my wrist and pulling me back into a strong hug. While I probably shouldn’t have felt anything but self-loathing, it was hard to focus on anything other than the way his arms felt around me. For the first time in weeks, I felt safe.

  Then that blanket of safety slowly slipped away and I felt something else. With my need for revenge satiated, that hole left by David’s death was slowly hollowed out again, and I let my grief slip back into place. I fell to my knees in Nick’s arms and cried. Cried for my loss. Cried for the closure I finally felt.

  I’d killed the monster responsible for his death, and in doing so, learned she was also responsible for my brother’s. While this wasn’t exactly the closure I’d been hoping for seven years ago, knowing what happened to him did give me a semblance of peace, and, given enough time, I felt pretty confident that I’d me able to move on from all of this and live a relatively normal life.

  There would definitely be some adjustments, and I would need Nick’s help to try and control my transformations. But, for the first time in a really long time, I would be allowed to grieve, knowing that the person responsible for all of this couldn’t hurt anybody else.

  Epilogue | farewell

  “What do you mean you’re leaving?”

  I didn’t blame my father for being upset by my unexpected announcement. It wasn’t like I gave him or my mother any warning about my decision. Not that I’d have been able to give them much anyway; I’d only just decided last night.

  It had been almost a week since I killed Gianna. I never returned to my parents’ house that night, too rattled to face them then or even the next morning. After leading me from the abandoned house, Nick took me back to his place where he made me tea and offered me his bed. I didn’t sleep much, instead hearing everything he and his Pack discussed.

  With Gianna disposed of, their mission here in Arizona was complete. So what next? They were ordered to return home to Canada, where they would take care of her existing army. It was suspected she had planned to start a war with the Pack for their interference, and Marcus wanted to put a stop to it before they gained power or appointed a new leader.

  I think it was hearing that Nick was leaving again that stung the most. True, while I was still mourning the loss of the life I could have had with David, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle Nick leaving me again. He’d been so great and done so much to help me through everything, so when he brought up the possibility that I could join him, I jumped at the opportunity.

  He suggested we go before the next full moon, though, wanting us to be at the compound before it happened, just in case the shift was forced upon me again. It made sense, and as much as I hated the idea of leaving my parents before the holidays without much of an explanation, I knew Nick was right. This was best for everyone.

  I shrugged, looking around my dad’s office. I let my eyes linger on all of the framed commendations that decorated his walls, remembering each and every ceremony we’d attended to show our support. As they traveled more to the left, I avoided my mother’s eyes as she stood beside me silently. “I know it’s sudden, but I think it’s for the best.”

  “For who?” he demanded, standing up and pushing his desk chair back so hard it hit the wall behind him. “Because I can guaran-damn-tee you that it’s not best for your mother and me.”

  “Dad—”

  “Where will you go?” he asked, cutting me off. He didn’t let me answer before asking another question. “How long will you be gone?”

  “Canada,” I replied. “Up to the mountains.” I paused, catching his eyes. “And I don’t know how long. I just…need some time.”

  “Canada,” he repeated, his eyebrows knitting together with doubt. “You hate the cold. Where will you stay?”

  He wasn’t wrong; I’d never been a fan of sub-zero temperatures, and I was fully aware of the climate difference from Arizona to the Canadian Rockies, but this was just something I had to do. Deep down, my dad knew this.

  “I do,” I replied carefully. “And I’ll be staying with…” Unsure of just how much I should tell him, I paused. Then I realized it was best to be as forthright as possible, because he would just find out in his own way if I wasn’t. “Nick. I’ll be staying with Nick. He’s got a place near the mountains. It’s hidden and away from any major cities, so it’s quiet and I’d be able to get the space I need right now.”

  He wasn’t happy hearing this—I could see it in his eyes—but he kept quiet, looking to where my mother stood next to the closed door. “And you’re okay with this, Laura?”

  It hadn’t escaped my notice that she’d been silent this entire time, and I worried because silence had never been a good thing when it came to Laura Leighton.

  Her blue eyes held mine, instantly transporting me to a time where I was just six years old and being scolded for threatening to run away. I felt about three feet tall as her stare burned into me, and I dropped my head, unworthy.

  With a quiver in her voice, she stepped forward and took my hand, showing me her support, even though I felt the conflict in the warmth of her skin and the tension in her eyes. “I don’t think we have much of a choice, Keith. She needs this.”

  Relieved to have my mother—mostly—on my side, I pulled her into my arms, using a little more of my strength than necessary, which made her stumble slightly before slamming into me. “Thank you,” I breathed as she stroked the length of my hair and cried onto my shoulder.

  Dad walked up behind me and wrapped his arms around the both of us, and when we parted, I handed him my gun and badge, effectively ending my bereavement leave and extending it to a leave of absence. Even though I knew my first investigation would never really be solved, O’Malley had taken it over after David died. It was originally only supposed to be temporary until I returned from my leave, but now he’d take the lead until it inevitably ran cold. Clarke was still trying to find the person responsible for David’s murder, too. He wouldn’t, though, because she was nothing more than a pile of ash in an alley while her maker’s ashes mingled with the dirt of an abandoned house.

  “What about your place?” Mom asked, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

  “As soon as it’s released, I’ll try to rent it out,” I explained. “I’ll still have my cell phone, and I’ll call when we get there and give you the number there, too. This is just…something I have to do. It’s all just too much.”

  With a few more hugs and promises to keep in touch, I exited the building. My colleagues all wished me well, and for the first time I realized just how much I would miss all of them, too.

  It’s not forever, I tried to tell myself, even though I wasn’t sure if it was entirely true or not. I’d love to be able to come back, but would I ever be able to exist in this world, knowing what I am? The last time I tried that, someone I loved died. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if that happened again.

  Which is why I have to go with Nick. I need to learn how to fully control what I am.

  In my car, my hands trembled, making me grip the wheel tighter until my knuckles turned white. I was nervous about what I had to do next, but I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to two more
people.

  I stopped at David’s grave first, kneeling before his headstone and telling him again how sorry I was about what happened. Guilt needled at me as I danced around the subject of leaving town with Nick. If he were here, David wouldn’t be happy about this, so I assured him that it was because he was gone that I had to go. I explained that I needed to learn how to control what I was, and that was all there was to my decision.

  Could he hear me? Honestly, I didn’t know. I liked to believe he was still with me in some way, and if things like werewolves and vampires could exist, why couldn’t spirits?

  Even in the crisp, late-November air, I felt warmth all around me. It seeped into every pore of my body, reminding me of the way I felt in David’s arms. With one final goodbye, I stood and walked through the cemetery until I was at the foot of Bobby’s grave.

  I stood in silence for a minute, not quite sure what to say at first, but then the one-sided conversation just seemed to flow naturally. It usually did.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been by in a while,” I began. “There’s a lot that’s been going on lately.” Everything that had happened this last month poured out of my mouth. I started with the attack in the park, the weird changes I went through, the cases I was working on, and finally the discovery that there was an unknown world within our own. I imagined the look that would be on his face when I told him that I was a werewolf, and I laughed, because I knew he’d find it ridiculous without some kind of proof.

  “Who even knew any of this was real?” I continued before taking a long pause. “Anyway, I came to say goodbye. Now that I know the truth about what happened to you and took care of the thing responsible, I’m going up to Canada with Nick. I need to learn a little more about what I’ve become and how to control it.” Another long pause, and I heard the wind whistle in my ears. I sighed. “I don’t know when I’ll be back—or if it’ll even be for good when it happens—but know I love you, and that you’re always with me.”

  As the sun continued to set, darkening the sky slightly, I turned away from his gravesite, ready to leave this life behind me and find a place in my new one.

  The wind picked up again, this time a little stronger, and the smell that surrounded me seemed…off somehow. I couldn’t explain it, and it might have been nothing at all, but I thought back to the smell of the early stages of decay that greeted me at David’s grave, and I realized that the dirt above Bobby’s grave smelled strangely clean.

  I knew that after seven years, the smell wasn’t going to be quite as potent—to animals and werewolves alike, I suppose—but there still should have been something. Even an unembalmed corpse could take upward of ten years to fully decompose. Add to the equation a solid oak coffin, and you’d be looking at double that. Maybe more. Even the grave next to Bobby’s carried the subtle notes of rotting flesh, and its occupant had been dead over twelve years.

  Curious, I knelt down and sniffed a little more deeply. I didn’t pay much attention to the few people that walked by me on their way toward the parking lot, looking my way strangely or talking in hushed whispers about the strange red-head who was sniffing someone’s grave.

  I smelled the minerals in the dirt, heard the worms shifting through the earth beneath the thick, green sod, but that was it. There was absolutely no hint of decay from this spot, only the subtle notes that continued to carry on the breeze from neighboring graves.

  Frustrated and confused by this, my fingers curled into the grass, the blades threading between my fingers, and before I realized what was happening, I started tearing it up. My heart thumped wildly as my fingers breached the top layer of soil and I tossed it aside. When I glanced down at what I was doing, shocked to find I was doing it without my brain having consented to it, I noticed that my nails had extended into claws, my fingers longer and in the first stage of transition. It was an unattractive sight, and something that happened before they retracted completely and turned into paws. It was also the first time I had directed the change to one specific body part before. Part of me was proud of this achievement.

  I dug. And I dug. And I dug some more. I tried ordering myself to stop once I realized what it was I was doing, but it was a futile attempt. I was on a mission, and nothing could stop me.

  Nothing, that is, except the feeling of my hand hitting the coffin buried six feet into the ground.

  Hours must have passed. The sky was completely dark by the time this happened, and I was covered in sweat, my chest heaving with labored breaths. Dirt soiled my clothes and skin, and it was trapped painfully beneath my claws. I stared down at the mahogany coffin I stood upon, the full realization of what I’d just done finally hitting me. My stomach knotted; I couldn’t believe I disrespected Bobby’s memory by digging up his grave. Who does that?

  Ashamed, I prepared to claw my way out of the grave when my heightened night-vision allowed me to spot a piece of wood. Kneeling down, I picked it up and noticed that it was the same mahogany color as the coffin. The wood surface creaked beneath me when I shifted my weight, and when I looked down, I noticed a small crack that led beneath the small mound of dirt still on half of the coffin. Frantic for answers, I shoveled the soil away until I fell back on my ass in shock at the sight that greeted me.

  There, in the top half of Bobby’s coffin, was a large hole, the inside empty. Its edges were jagged, like someone had broken out. So many scenarios ran through my mind from Bobby being buried alive and digging his way out to someone robbing his grave.

  Before I could cook up more ridiculous theories, a voice from above startled me. “It was only a matter of time before you found out,” Nick said, kneeling down and extending his hand out to me. “Come on. It’s time I told you the truth about the night your brother died. You’re ready.”

  Slowly, I stood and accepted his help, finding myself more desperate than ever before for answers.

  the Blood mooN trilogy continues in…

  Wolf mooN Coming january 2015

  Nick and I continued walking, and he took me to the gazebo I’d sought refuge in earlier. He sniffed the air, and I did the same, knowing instantly what he smelled.

  “You and Jackson talked?” He seemed uneasy, maybe worried about something.

  “We did. He found me in here earlier and told me about his family,” I confessed. “That’s it.”

  Nick seemed surprised. “Wow. That’s a big step for him. He’s usually reluctant to open up like that to anyone.”

  “I think he wanted me to know that I wasn’t alone,” I whispered, sitting on the bench.

  “Still… Definitely explains how he was quick to jump to your defense at the table. Makes me wonder what his ulterior motive is.”

  I looked up at him as he paced in front of me. “He can’t just be cordial? He has to have some sinister plan for befriending me after what he did in the park that night?”

  Nick exhaled heavily, his breath creating a dense fog as it mingled with the cold winter air. “Listen, Brooke… About that night—”

  Suddenly, a scream pierced the night, forcing me from my feet and the both of us across the yard and back toward the front of the house. There stood Colby and Zach, his arms around her protectively as she clung to his jacket, her face buried against his chest.

  “What is it?” Nick demanded as we both came to a stop beside them.

  I smelled the blood before I saw the steam rising up from the driveway. When I looked down, I gasped loudly, reaching out and grabbing Nick’s arm. My nails dug into his bicep, even through his parka while my other hand covered my mouth.

  There, on the ground, was a wolf. Not a werewolf from the smell of it. No, this was one hundred percent animal. I didn’t know the different breeds of wolves that were out there, having been born and raised in Arizona where wolves were a rarity in and of themselves, but it was gray and white and about the size of a German Shepherd. It had been cut from pelvis to throat, all of its organs spilling out onto the snow-covered concrete, and its eyes were wide and unseeing. Frozen in sh
ock and pain for all eternity.

  Nick stepped forward, but I remained paralyzed in place, being forced to relinquish my hold on him. He knelt down next to the animal, cringing as the smell hit him harder than a second ago. “It’s a gray wolf,” he announced. “Not anyone we know.” While I’d already suspected it wasn’t one of our kind, I assumed he was saying this for Colby’s benefit.

  When I turned toward her, I found we’d been joined by the rest of the Pack, and Marcus did not look pleased as he stared off into the night. I knew in that instant who was responsible…

  Gianna’s slighted coven.

  And they had just declared war on the Pack.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A.D. Ryan resides in Edmonton, Alberta with her extremely supportive husband and children (two sons and a stepdaughter). Reading and writing have always been a big part of her life, and she hopes that her books will entertain countless others the way that other authors have done for her. Even as a small child, she enjoyed creating new and interesting characters and molding their worlds around them.

  To learn more about the author and stay up-to-date on future publications, please look for her on Facebook and her blog.

  www.facebook.com/pages/AD-Ryan-Author/

  http://adryanauthorblog.wordpress.com

  Table of Contents

  Prologue | origin

  Chapter one | celebrate

  Chapter two | ghosts

  Chapter three | truth

  Chapter four | attacked

  Chapter five | awake

  Chapter six | observation

  Chapter seven | ravenous

  Chapter eight | rush

  Chapter nine | inquiry

  Chapter ten | cravings

  Chapter eleven | urges